A skeptic's journey, my experience reading up on HHO and now starting...

[Cadillac]

"In most cars the alternator is pulling anywhere from 15-25 HP already. "

I disagree:

20 HP = 20 x 746 watts/HP = 14,920 Watts

14,920/14 Volts = 1065 Amps

Way, way, out of range of automobile alternators.

I hope that this helps.

BoyntonStu

I think you misunderstand what I was saying. The drag from the alternator being on the belt system takes that much overall power from the engine's output. Look at gross HP vs. brake HP. Mighty muscle car engines can be rated all the way up to 400 HP gross. After you account for all the things that are robbing it of power you would be lucky to see 250 bHP.

[Stevo]

I think you misunderstand what I was saying. The drag from the alternator being on the belt system takes that much overall power from the engine's output. Look at gross HP vs. brake HP. Mighty muscle car engines can be rated all the way up to 400 HP gross. After you account for all the things that are robbing it of power you would be lucky to see 250 bHP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepo...ake_horsepower

Correct the article if it's wrong, but don't you have that explaination backwards?

[Smith03Jetta]

A standard 14 volt 90 amp alternator produces 1260 watts.

1260 watt = 1.6890080429 horsepower [electric]

Boynton is correct. There's no way an alternator is so inefficient that it uses 15 to 25 engine horsepower to turn it into 1.69 electric horsepower.

I've attached a photo of a 25 hp motor. There's no way that a small car alternator can use up the same energy that this motor uses.

Some say the "WINDAGE" causes an alternator to consume engine power even with no electrical field being hooked up. I know of a guy who tested this on the drag strip where it really matters. Windage is a theory that just having a belt connected to the alternator reduced power or increases fuel consumption from freewheeling. He tested this and came up with no measurable data either in fuel consumption or instruments.

Therefore...

If the belt being hooked up to the alternator does not reduce the overall horsepower or negatively affect the gas mileage then ALL reduction in gas mileage or engine power must be directly attributed to the magnetic field creating electricity.

[BoyntonStu]

A standard 14 volt 90 amp alternator produces 1260 watts.

1260 watt = 1.6890080429 horsepower [electric]

Boynton is correct. There's no way an alternator is so inefficient that it uses 15 to 25 engine horsepower to turn it into 1.69 electric horsepower.

I've attached a photo of a 25 hp motor. There's no way that a small car alternator can use up the same energy that this motor uses.

Some say the "WINDAGE" causes an alternator to consume engine power even with no electrical field being hooked up. I know of a guy who tested this on the drag strip where it really matters. Windage is a theory that just having a belt connected to the alternator reduced power or increases fuel consumption from freewheeling. He tested this and came up with no measurable data either in fuel consumption or instruments.

Therefore...

If the belt being hooked up to the alternator does not reduce the overall horsepower or negatively affect the gas mileage then ALL reduction in gas mileage or engine power must be directly attributed to the magnetic field creating electricity.

Amen!

Facts are always better than opinions.

BoyntonStu

[kiki]

maybe mistaking with a/c system pump ? this one normlly eats 7% of bhp of the engine

[Cadillac]

An automobile alternator is 40-50% efficent. It still does not see all of the HP it is taking. This is losed due to heat and drag. Yes 25 HP is extreme. I can not speak for every car that has been produced so I would have to guess.

I am sure your buddy will tell (probably why he tested it in the first place) that the use of alternators has been somewhat of a hot topic in drag racing. Some say it is not worth the power lose from it being installed. Others say that it regains the power losed through the ignition system. I guess you buddy proved the second is true.

The second is also what is occuring in your car. Inefficiency that is regained, well almost of all of it. The rest can be regained through pulley system alterations. Underdrive pulley sets have been know to increase power anywhere from 5-35 HP. Hard to imagine heat and drag (or windage as it was put) where not taking away power after you see these gains in your car from one pulley alteration.

[JojoJaro]

I think you misunderstand what I was saying. The drag from the alternator being on the belt system takes that much overall power from the engine's output. Look at gross HP vs. brake HP. Mighty muscle car engines can be rated all the way up to 400 HP gross. After you account for all the things that are robbing it of power you would be lucky to see 250 bHP.

I don't think the alternator is drawing anywhere near 10-25 hp. This opinion is from direct reading of the engine parameters.

I have an EFILive system on my Duramax and I log as many parameters from the engine the Car Electronic Bus will allow. From those parameters, an HP figure is calculated.

Based on the readings, my Duramax van takes about 25 hp to maintain highway speed. This is for a van with a high roof (more air drag) and loaded to about 10000 lbs. If all it takes to maintain highway speed is 25 hp, I doubt the alternator is drawing 25 hp. As Boynton mentioned, the alternator would have burnt up if indeed it was using 25 hp.

[JojoJaro]

I, like MrSmith of these forums, am a skeptic by trade and personality. If it's too good to be true, it has to be has been my mantra most of my life, and it's served me well so far. After reading his dedicated writeup, many of the other threads here and on some other forums, I can't say I'm a believer yet, but I'm willing to experiment on my own. I've ordered the necessary parts to build my own HHO reactor, and I have a few things going into this project that should make it relatively easy to quantify my results. I'm an active Hypermiller right now. I check and adjust tire pressure on my car weekly and I keep pretty anal retentive records of my gas mileage. If adding HHO and changing my car's F/A ratio and timing increases my gas mileage, I'll be the first to raise the believer flag and do what I can to convert others.

I currently drive a 1994 jetta 5 speed manual with the 2.0 engine in it. In mixed driving over the last 10 tanks of gas I'm getting 24.1mpg, which is just above the revised EPA numbers for my vehicle. Gas usage is measured via GPS readings, not the speedometer, as the vehicle has larger aftermarket tires installed. I've been considering going back to stock, thinner tires for some time now, but for the duration of this test, I don't want to change anything.

These are my thoughts going into this project;

It's current 6:32AM and I've been reading all night and I'm still having trouble figuring out where the increase in MPG is coming from at all. The law of Conservation of Energy tells me that the total energy of a system will remain the same, regardless of what I do with it in the middle. If I'm using energy to create HHO, the output of that energy even in a 100% efficient system will still be the same after I use the HHO to help propel the car forward. We all know the alternator hanging on our ICE engines aren't near 100% efficient.

The best thing I can come up with is that the HHO mixed with the fuel is acting as a catylyst that's having a significant change in the energy output of the resulting detonation. In theory, if we measured all of the emissions from an HHO/gas system, we should see less overall emissions from that vehicle because more of the mass went into the detonation to propel the car forward. The amount of energy released by burning the gasoline/HHO mixture would have to be higher than the energy needed to produce the HHO and the normal detonation of an equal amount of gasoline. That's the only way this would work, make the detonation more efficient in terms of energy released vs physical byproduct. Unfortunately I can't find any science to back that up, no one has done energy release tests of HHO/Gasoline mixtures, nor emissions captures from HHO vehicles.

What bothers me most overall to be honest are the amount of snake oil salesmen who have been attracted to HHO, the worst of the bunch seems to be the pyramid scam of water4gas.com. I have additional concerns about the long term viability of an HHO plant, production of noxious and poisonous byproducts and how we deal with their disposal.

I also wonder if a lot of the supposed increases in mileage don't come from people being aware of their driving habits. I have a 2004 jeep grand cherokee with the big v8 in it. When my wife drives it, she sees 15mpg on average sourced over her last 10 tanks of gas. I took the jeep for about 2 months, I see 21mpg on average, doing mostly the same driving, but I practice a lot of hypermilling and I check and adjust my tire pressure once a week.

So please, don't think I'm going into this starry eyed about how wonderful it'll be to get 35mpg from my beater Jetta. I've seen enough in the way of documentation from some levelheaded people that I want to test it out for myself. The overall cost is very small (less than 100 bucks) to build a test system to see if adding about 1lpm of HHO to my jetta will have any effect.

I plan on building a simple plant like the one MrSmith has outlined and doing the adjustments to the ECU via vag-com software and lemmiwinks.

I'll detail my build, and results in this thread going forward. If anyone has any comments on some of the questions raised, I'd love to hear them. I'd really like to understand where the increase in efficacy of the fuel is coming from.

Read my thread on the Thermodynamic explanation of why HHO increases MPGs. Study the efficiency equations closely.


http://hhoforums.com/showthread.php?t=1006

[DigitalMocking]

Read my thread on the Thermodynamic explanation of why HHO increases MPGs. Study the efficiency equations closely.


http://hhoforums.com/showthread.php?t=1006

Thanks for that reference, I appreciate it.

As it turns out, I'm hanging up my IT director hat as of today and I'm starting work at a local auto repair shop, so it'll be a lot easier for me to tinker going forward.

[Stevo]

Thanks for that reference, I appreciate it.

As it turns out, I'm hanging up my IT director hat as of today and I'm starting work at a local auto repair shop, so it'll be a lot easier for me to tinker going forward.

Wow, that's a hell of a career change! I couldn't imaging going from web developer to something of the same. Hmm, I guess if the stress level is going to be decreased, it might make sense. Good luck!